Tim Banks is the CEO of APM, a Canada wide construction and property development company, with its head office in Charlottetown, PEI. My family has lived on PEI for over eight generations and I was born at the Prince County Hospital in Summerside, PEI. I am hoping someone will soon develop a blood test to authenticate when you actually become an "Islander" as I am still having problems explaining where I'm from?

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

We have 465 elected officials in 75 Municipalities (2 Cities, 7 Towns, 66 Municipalities) for a population of 134,000 people which is absolutely crazy. ... that gives us 8 Mayors, 8 Deputy Mayors, 357 Councillors, 67 Chairpersons, 26 Vice Chairpersons and to top that off we have 72 Chief Administrative Officers that are officially hired in some form of capacity.... Now add to this our Elected Provincial Government members, our Federal MP's and Senators and this my friends is how you spell "Fiefdoms" and no one seems to want to give up their fiefdoms just like our schools. So it's refreshing to see some ideas coming forward at the Commission on Land Use and Local Governance Hearings because under the current governance system PEI is heading for a crises. When the final report is delivered to the Premier my instincts are that there are going to be some major changes coming forward.... and again the Premier and his Government will have to stand-up like they did on the school closings and make some hard decisions, which I believe they can and they should... it's funny but when I grew up here I always thought Farming, Fishing and Tourism were PEI's biggest industries but now that I try and develop here I know that they don't hold a candle to the "Industry of Government".....Head of O’Leary council wants all the Island incorporatedBY ERIC MCCARTHYTranscontinental MediaELMSDALE – The chair of the O’Leary Community Council, made a pitch this week to have all of P.E.I. incorporated. “I would like to see the up-west section of Western P.E.I. divided into the three larger municipalities of O’Leary, Alberton and Tignish,” Nancy Wallace told commissioner Ralph Thompson during the first public hearing of the Commission on Land Use and Local Governance. She suggested boundaries could be established similar to fire districts. Wallace said community facilties like arenas “are paid for by our residents but are used mostly by non-residents so we feel the residents of O’Leary are being taxed unfairly.” If outlying areas were incorporated, “we’d have to have a tiered tax rate,” she said, because outlying residents would not have access to such municipal services as the sewer utility. The mayor of Alberton, Perry Morrell, submitting a presentation as a private citizen, also made a pitch for a larger municipal footprint and a regional approach to services to eliminate the duplication of some major equipment and allow for purchase of more advanced equipment. Wallace stressed total incorporation would not only benefit existing municipalities, the entire region would benefit from increased gas tax revenue and greater political clout. With municipalities’ residential properties in close proximity to farms, Wallace suggested legislation is needed to address things like odour problems and water protection.

PEI is smaller than the City of Greater Sudbury and yet we are governed at more levels than the mind can possibly handle. We have federal MPs, provincial MLAs, city councillors, and it goes on through to unincorporated villages. PEI would do well to strictly analyze just what it needs in terms of useful and effective government. The savings should then be turned over the health and education services.

Prince Edward Island is a people based economy, with fishing and farming ta boot. We create construction jobs to get people to work so they don't have to live on provincial social services; instead those workers get the satisfaction of putting in a day of work and then they can bring home money from Ottawa while they collect employment insurance during the off-season. I'm doing it except I went to Calgary first.

We don't really have any other choice unless we make some changes. We can't just fire civil workers and expect a private business to hire that person at a comparable wage.

Private businesses find all sorts of creative ways to make money, why can our government not do the same? I would like to see the province create a corporation that designs video games and computer software - quality game and software - that we can sell on the market and turn large profits.

...but I suspect that PEI will keep doing what it does because we do it so well.